Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

48 reviews

mitziatratum's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Ableism

bookworm247's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Addiction, Medical content, Grief, Drug abuse, Animal death, and Death

nyree42's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.0

My first ever Stephen King. Picked it up due to... you guessed it... the title, since I love fairy tales and fantasies and "other world" stories.
Well, it delivered exactly what I was looking for, and now that I know that a work of Mr. King was quite enjoyable, I will peruse his catalogue to find out if he has written anything else that might be to my taste.

As for my review... the plot of "Fairy Tale" was a bit slow at times; he is quite a verbose author who seems to like to thoroughly flesh out the character's life and the world around them, but that was fine. I still enjoyed all of it, even if sometimes I put the book down for awhile once I'd gotten to one of the more "drawn-out" parts.

It's not a "scary" tale; just creepy when talking about the villains, the evil, and the bad things that happened to people, but it remained "down to earth" and hopeful even in the face of darkness.

I will be hoping that it is adapted into a mini-series! That or two films (need at least two so that important things aren't rushed over). My preference would be a nice, "true-to-the-book" TV mini-series adaptation though. Amazon Prime or HBO, let's do this! (Sorry, can't bet on Netflix, they might ruin it.)

Reading age: would recommend for, at the youngest, age 16 and up. (Note that it contains violence, some gore/death/injury-depictions, frightening/tense situations, some sexual mentions and lewd jokes and swearing, so it's not child-friendly.) 

Since it's about a teenager, there is something that teens would get out of it; yet it's written for adults and with an adult perspective, so if you're in your 20s and up it will probably be more meaningful. I've passed my 20s and it still hit home for me, making me remember what it was like to be an adolescent - although Charlie Reade was a lot more cool than I was at that age.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Bullying, Death, Kidnapping, Body horror, Alcoholism, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Addiction, Alcohol, Confinement, and Cursing

Moderate: Sexual content, Torture, Slavery, and War

kaylabrotzman's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Addiction, Death of parent, Torture, Gore, Blood, War, Excrement, Body horror, Cursing, and Gun violence

Minor: Child death

karapillar's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Police brutality, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Violence, Blood, Gun violence, Chronic illness, Cursing, Hate crime, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Grief, Terminal illness, and Vomit

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Torture, Abandonment, Medical content, Cancer, Pregnancy, Slavery, Child death, Cannibalism, Confinement, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

tonks332's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

vixenreader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Despite some ableism found in the villains (especially in how ugly appearances are equated with ugly personalities) and some of the reversal of the curse hinges on some disabilities being somewhat reverted, this book is still a dark, exciting reminder that sacrifice and loss of innocence is essential to creating a happy ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Cursing, Gore, Alcoholism, Alcohol, War, Blood, Torture, Violence, Death, Addiction, Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, and Excrement

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Medical content, Car accident, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Animal death, Death of parent, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, and Bullying

Minor: Racism and Sexual content

Be prepared for decaying bodies, half-dead soldiers, and said soldiers exploding. There is also some ableism in terms of how little people are treated in the text.

lukerik's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

Just awful. 

The protagonist grows up as a hero with one of a thousand faces, but only begins to realise it when he discovers a portal to a fairy tale world in an old man’s shed. The opening’s actually pretty good. Quite meta, but not too much. 

The problems begin when he goes through the portal and finds himself in the flimsiest, dullest fantasy world world you could imagine. OK, fine: it’s not as bad as Wizard and Glass, but not far off. An undeveloped world is fine in a real fairy tale, but this is a 600 page novel that needs to be a short story. So boring. I actually had to skip a bit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Violence, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

cc0906's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Excrement, Medical trauma, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Murder, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Addiction, Car accident, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Confinement, and Kidnapping

tortoisemonster's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

Female characters were completely flat, they’re not much more than love interests, one character offering to “lie with” Charlie in a gesture of thanks was very off. King communicates evil characters through describing them as fat and ugly which is disappointing. I find it very odd that the main character (who is Jewish as far as I remember?), in order to become the prince that saves the day, has his hair change to blond and his eyes turn blue? Not sure King’s thinking behind that uncomfortable choice. Quite unremarkable and tedious at times but an uplifting ending to a basic fairy tale story.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Cursing, Murder, Grief, Alcoholism, Body horror, and Death

Minor: Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Gun violence, and Murder